A new earth?

sunset MossYard
Solway Firth MJ 2005

Then whoever invokes a blessing in the land shall bless by the God of faithfulness, because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my sight. For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth. Be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating. Isaiah 65:16-18

'I believe in the resurrection of the body.' However many millions have repeated those words in every continent and time, in thousands of languages, we still have a tendency to believe that heaven is somewhere above the bright blue sky and that's where our disembodied souls go leaving their bodies and the earth behind.

But we also say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ, who on the third day rose from the dead'. If Jesus' battered dead body could come alive again and be gloriously restored, so that he could stand beside the lake in the early morning and cook breakfast for his friends, then I believe the words of the Lord that come to us from Isaiah and are repeated by John in Revelation. There will be a new earth and I, as part of the physical universe, will live in it in a new body.

All the delights of our earth will be restored and recreated. The fractures between God and humanity, between human beings, between humanity and the natural environment and between God and his creation will be mended,* totally and for ever, through the cross of Christ, who is the firstborn of all creation (Colossians 1:15).

Sunset and rainbows, roses and redwoods, paintings and music - all will be ours to enjoy, unspoilt. The damaged earth healed, the lion eating straw beside the ox. Perhaps we will all understand and rejoice in the poetry of each others' languages; perhaps we will meet and recognise with joy 'the infant that lived but a few days' (Isaiah 65:20). Maybe we will live in cities - the promised new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2).

When we pray, 'Your will be done on earth as in heaven,' we are 'invoking a blessing in the land', and promising to do all we can to continue the process of restoration and redemption that Jesus began on the cross, not just in individual lives, but in the world around us. Our work, whatever we do, is to make our earth more like his heaven until he comes again in glory and creates a new earth. Margaret Killingray (LICC)